Anna Seghers' The Seventh Cross was published in 1942, during the height of World War II. The novel is set in the Westhofen camp, which is fictitious but based in part on real-life concentration camps. It follows a young man named George Heisler, a Communist who tries to escape prosecution by the Nazis by taking refuge with willing people in the German countryside. Over time, people like George, who roam through the countryside looking for refuge with willing people, start to get picked up by the Gestapo and sent to concentration camps. Eventually, George is sent to the concentration camp, where he is forced to contend with Nazi aggression, racism, and overall poor conditions.
Although The Seventh Cross is one of the most famous German novels of the past several decades, it was not fully translated into English until 2018. In Germany, the novel was incredibly successful after the fall of the Third Reich. In fact, it is the novel most closely associated with German literature of the period. By 1943, over 300,000 copies of the novel were sold in German, Russian, Portuguese, Yiddish, and Spanish versions, suggesting the novel's importance and quality.
